SpaceX Recovers from Early Launch Problems

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(WHNT) – SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, has reported on Twitter that all of Dragon’s thrusters are now online and functioning normally. Dragon is preparing to raise orbit and all systems are green.

SpaceX launched its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule from Florida on Friday morning, starting the company’s second NASA-contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The company was working on a technical difficulty shortly after the capsule separated from its Falcon 9 rocket. Musk posted on Twitter that the some of the capsule’s thrusters — which it would use to reach the station — weren’t initializing.

Musk wrote that SpaceX would hold off on deploying the capsule’s solar arrays until it could get at least two of the four thruster pods to work.

The Dragon is due to dock with the space station on Saturday. It’s carrying 1,268 pounds of supplies for the crew and its experiments, NASA says.

The mission is the California company’s second of a planned 12 resupply missions under a contract with NASA.